


A Rock and a Hard Place

by raendown



Series: Follower Milestone Gift Fics [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 10:01:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30137868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raendown/pseuds/raendown
Summary: Sakura could really use a taste of her own medicine. No, really, she needed some healing before this concussion made her do something that stopped Kakashi's heart entirely.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Hatake Kakashi
Series: Follower Milestone Gift Fics [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2145417
Comments: 25
Kudos: 73





	A Rock and a Hard Place

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt word: woolage

Swaying gently on the rock that served as her stool, Sakura blinked up at him owlishly as though her dazed expression could in any way be half as terrifying as the full force of her usual ire. When he failed to look properly cowed she narrowed her eyes but doing so only seemed to rob her of what little balance was left. Kakashi didn’t bother trying not to laugh when she careened sideways off her perch. 

“Not supposed to laugh at me,” she grumbled. “So rude.” 

“Maa, and you weren’t supposed to leap straight in to the radius of my paper bomb. I think that makes us about even.”

Sakura gave an indelicate snort only to break out in a coughing fit when it sent up a small cloud of dust around her face, mashed in to the dirt as she was now. For a good handful of seconds Kakashi seriously considered being a good person and helping her sit upright. Then he discarded the idea. Watching her deal with the early effects of a concussion while her depleted chakra recovered enough for a bit of healing was so much more entertaining. It wasn’t like she had any other injuries from getting tossed back in to a tree, just a routine bump on the noggin, nothing that any shinobi who’d been on the field for longer than two missions hadn’t suffered through before. 

“It tastes really bad down here,” Sakura told him. 

“Probably because you’re practically eating dirt,” he pointed out helpfully. 

“Oh. Yeah. Hey what happened to my rock?” 

“You must have misplaced it.” Kakashi flopped down on to the rock himself and leaned over his mission partner with one eye turned up in a friendly smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll help you look for it.” 

The gratitude in her eyes when she thanked him for being so nice set him to laughing again. Amazingly, Sakura didn’t even seem to mind. Infamous for her temper as she was, it was a rare opportunity indeed that she let someone laugh at her misfortune without answering their mockery with a swift punch. Kakashi was pretty sure if she tried to throw a punch right now she would be just as likely to find her own face with it.

Shading his eye with a hand, Kakashi made a show of scouring the landscape around them in search of the rock he was currently sitting on. When his search yielded no results he relayed as much to his companion and chuckled as Sakura rolled over to stretch out on her back. 

“It’s not fair,” she grumbled. “Rocks don’t just get up and walk away!” 

“Well, not most of them.”

“Oh! Maybe it was a doton!” 

“Maybe,” Kakashi agreed. 

Did it make him a bad person to wish he got to see her in this kind of state more often? It probably did. He would never wish more harm on her, of course, it was just that seeing her with absolutely no walls around her heart and all inhibitions gone was a very rare treat. Even on the rare occasion she joined her friends for a night of indulging she wasn’t quite this open. Where most people seemed to loosen up with alcohol, Sakura only seemed to make a trade of good balance for more energy without falling victim to the loss of self that led Naruto to confess his love for several different trees in the park near his apartment. 

Really it was good that there was no one else around for Kakashi to justify his actions to. He was fairly sure any of their mutual friends would call him all sorts of unflattering things for enjoying this. 

But really, he would challenge anyone in the world not to be amused at the way Sakura, so famous for her competence and independence, struggled valiantly with the simple task of getting her body upright again. When they made it back to the village he was going to enjoy taking every opportunity possible to laugh about this - where she couldn’t hear him, of course. Kakashi enjoyed a good joke as much as the next man but he also enjoyed keeping his spine inside his body where it belonged and Sakura was more than capable of removing that for him if she was angry enough. 

“Hey, hey, come here.” Waving one hand, Sakura beckoned him with her eyes set somewhere vaguely over his left shoulder. It seemed not only her good sense had been affected by the concussion but her good vision as well. Not an unusual symptom. Kakashi moved to crouch down in front of her as bidden. 

“You called, my lady?”

She laughed a little before nodding. “I think the ground is trying to keep me.”

“Well I certainly can’t blame it for that.”

“Huh?”

“I would try to keep you too if I had you.” 

The way her eyes widened made him chuckle but it was a nervous sound, hopeful that she wouldn’t remember any of this once she was able to heal herself. Sakura hummed thoughtfully. 

“Help me up,” she demanded. 

“Someone’s feeling bossy.” Despite his words he was already holding out one hand even as he spoke. 

It very quickly became clear that more than one hand would be needed to keep her steady as Kakashi hauled her up on to her feet, quite happy but just as ashamed to stand there holding all of her fingers entwined with his own while she swayed dangerously back and forth. He could see the trajectory of her fall when it finally came but watching her face plant against the buckles on his vest was so much funnier than doing anything to catch her. With the careful distance that had always existed between them before he expected her to push away immediately. Maybe to giggle a little considering her almost inebriated state. He certainly didn’t expect her to just stay there and wriggle about until she had freed her face to look up at him with a smile. 

He should have known right there that something was about to happen but even if he’d tried to brace he never would have been able to prepare himself for two hands suddenly winding themselves about his neck as Sakura pulled her face right up close to his own. Kakashi was abruptly extra grateful to his mask for covering any traces of what was surely a very deep blush on his cheeks. 

“I am the boss,” Sakura declared. 

“Maa, if you want to be,” was all he could think to say. His agreement seemed to please her, which she showed by pulling even closer until she was up on her tippy toes. 

“What I say goes!”

Kakashi swallowed, imagining all the things she could say and how eagerly he would do them. “Right. And what are your orders, Sakura-sama?”

The tinkling giggle she made at being addressed so formally was like the ringing of little silver bells. 

“I order you”-her fingers were already moving even as she spoke, giving no quarter and no time for protest-“to let me play with your hair! I’ve always wanted to know!”

“A-ah. Kn- oh my. Know what, exactly?” 

Breathing, he discovered, was incredibly difficult with such a pretty face so close to his own. Add to that the warmth of Sakura’s body seeping through his clothing plus the heavy weight of guilt knowing that she was not in her right mind and Kakashi found that he simply didn’t know what to do. Obviously the right thing to do would be to push her away but it was possible he was over-interpreting this. In this state Sakura might not even realize the implications of their position.

Her actions certainly supported that theory. Despite the intimacy she had pressed herself in to she seemed interested only in the spiky rough hair she’d gotten her hands on. Another tinkling giggle escaped and while it was indeed a very pretty giggle Kakashi absently noted that he preferred her usual brash laugh. It suited her so much more. 

“I’ve always wanted to know what it felt like! And if you might like it when I pull on it.” With a beguilingly empty smile Sakura tugged ever so gently on the small fistful she was holding, her eyes very carefully watching the spot just next to his own. 

“Why...would you want to pull my hair?” Kakashi asked. 

“Duh, to see if you like it.”

Frowning, he was almost distracted as he asked, “Why would I like it?”

“Oh I dunno. Some people like it when you pull their hair in bed, y’know? I like it.” Sakura’s face morphed in to a heated expression as if she hadn’t just floored him with a couple of boldly spoken sentences. “Do you wanna pull my hair, Kakashi?”

“I found your rock! Let’s get you back on the rock, okay!?” 

“Mou, but I wasn’t done!”

Kakashi ignored her protests, slipping away from the grip on his hair and trying not to be too obvious about the panic attack he was currently having. As he settled his mission partner back on to the rock she’d fallen off before he made the mistake of looking away for a crucial few seconds. It was all the time she needed. Before he could even get his eyes back on her Sakura was lunging forward to bury her fingers in his hair again, trapping him in place, leaving him utterly helpless to do anything but listen as she murmured excitedly to herself.

Obviously it wasn’t the first time he’d been this close to a woman. It wasn’t even the first time he’d been this close to Sakura herself. The problem was that it was the first time that didn’t involve fighting for their lives together or sparring or even medical attention. Kakashi knew he should find an excuse to move away before his poor depraved mind could start feeding him images from the last time he’d dreamt of something disturbingly close to this. And he really would have, honest, if not for the fact that even concussed Sakura had a very strong grip and Kakashi wasn’t the most vain man in the world but he didn’t really want to walk around with several chunks of his hair missing.

“It’s always so messy,” Sakura breathed. “How...how does it stand up on it’s own!?”

“Natural talent,” was all Kakashi managed to wheeze in return.

“Does it smell nice?” 

With an oddly gentle pull she dragged him in close enough to bury her face in the very top of his head, breathing deeply while Kakashi did his best not to take advantage of the angle he suddenly found himself in. He might appreciate her chest in the privacy of his own fantasies but he liked to think he had more tact than to do so now. Despite his many other flaws he wasn’t a total creep. Just a little bit of a creep. A little wasn’t too bad.

“Maa…” he managed to choke out eventually after the silence began to stretch on. “Does it?” 

“Smells like dirt. And sweat. And just a little bit of citrus. Why do you have lemons in your hair?”

“That would be my shampoo,” Kakashi told her in a strained voice. 

“No, I’m pretty sure there’s lemons in here. Don’t worry, I’ll find them!” Sakura’s face lifted off the top of his head but there wasn’t much relief to be had when her fingers continued to poke and prod, shift and dig, all but massaging his scalp in a fuzzy-minded search for fruit that wasn’t there. Kakashi prayed for strength when she added in a mumble under her breath, “So much hair, so messy, gonna take a while to find those lemons…”

Feeling rather like his presence had somehow been forgotten, Kakashi very slowly shuffled around until he’d curled his body in to a position that wouldn’t start to ache before he was finally released. Who knew how long this wonderful torture would last? A part of him hoped that Sakura’s chakra levels would recover quickly so he could be free but another very shameful part was more than happy to remain exactly where he was and just let her do as she pleased. It was very possible he should have been thinking of some way to help that first part along. Instead he only settled both hands in his lap and closed his eyes when Sakura’s fingers dragged against the natural grain like she could somehow know how much he liked it. 

Maybe, he thought to himself with a hint of wry humor, he should finally man up and just ask her out. One dinner together wouldn’t hurt anyone, probably wouldn’t wouldn’t ruin their friendship if it didn’t go well. He would have to gather his courage - later. 

A quick peek up even at this angle told him that Sakura was still just as out of it as ever, no closer to returning her own good sense, which meant he would probably need to deal with this odd behavior for a while yet. When she did come back to herself Sakura was no doubt going to be mortified at her own actions and Kakashi very much wanted to be able to tell her with perfect honesty that he hadn’t taken advantage of the situation beyond getting in a few laughs. With any luck his honesty would earn her favor. 

Then with even greater luck he would take his shot and maybe, just maybe, he might have the honor of feeling those deceptively small fingers in his hair again for an entirely different reason. 


End file.
